Andor was one of the great TV triumphs of the decade. Here's why.
Warning: this story contains spoilers for the season two finale.
It reinvented Star Wars
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The many Star Wars films and subsequent television shows in George Lucas' blockbuster fantasy galaxy were made for children. Andor is the first project made for adults. Gilroy has described it as 'a definitive work about revolution', tracking Cassian's progress from apolitical thief to committed operative over five years while the rebellion takes shape and the authoritarian machinery of the Empire seeks to suppress it.
Whether as a heist thriller, an espionage drama, or a study of guerilla warfare, the show leant into complicated, contested spaces.
The Force was not with them
Traditionally Stars Wars stories are about heroic, often super-powered individuals, beginning with Tatooine teenager turned Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, pulling off extraordinary feats. The space wizards are nowhere to be seen in Andor, with but a hint of their spiritual side quietly seeping into the second season. Ordinary people mattered in Andor. The show details how oppression slowly, inexorably builds, and the different ways that individuals choose to defy the Empire's fascistic control. Not everyone had to blow up the Death Star to be heard.
The infrastructure mattered
Andor showed the messy, slow-turning steps required to build a rebellion. The initial wave of dissidents and saboteurs had to be put to work. Funding had to be acquired. The politicians and the partisans had to move in tandem.
The show's Rebel spymaster, Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard), choreographed an entire movement, and he did it while being evasive, cynical, and sometimes untrustworthy. The cost paid by various Rebels was always felt. As Luthen put it, 'I burn my decency for someone else's future.'
The Empire had an org chart
In parallel to the Rebels, Andor charted the workings of the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB), the secret police tasked with negating democratic institutions, cracking down on dissent, and eventually using military might to destroy opposition. The Emperor, and his enforcer Darth Vader, were never seen. But some senior ISB officers attended meetings the dictator was at and brought orders back. Andor focused on the people who carried out those orders, whether out of zealotry, misplaced duty or simple workplace expectations. Obsessive ISB supervisor Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) became one of the show's most compelling characters.
The real world was always present
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It was impossible to watch Andor and not draw connections to real-life events. For some that meant looking to the war in Gaza, while others saw historic precedents. A major storyline in the second season was the Empire cracking down on the planet of Ghorman, with a view to seizing direct control for destructive mass mining.
From the clothes to the language, Ghorman drew on France's experiences under Nazi occupation in World War II. There was no one correct interpretation, all were valid. What was unquestionable, however, was how harrowing the Empire's stage-managed massacre eventually was.
It was a tactile experience
One of the show's true unsung heroes was production designer Luke Hull. His work permeated every scene, invoking grand spaces that conveyed power and authority, but also makeshift bases and everyday residences. So many items had a casual, scuffed utility. This was a Star Wars experience where people had a home life, and the plausible homes that went with that. The science-fiction technology was often not overwhelming and screen-based, but rather mechanical. The communications console secretly operated by Luthen's unyielding offsider, Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau), was a mass of plugs and knobs.
The actors got to feast
Gilroy assembled an almighty writers' room, including his brother Dan (Nightcrawler) and Beau Willimon (House of Cards). The episodes had an urgent, uneasy momentum, but at the right point they would feature a memorable monologue. Cassian's adoptive mother, Maarva Andor (Fiona Shaw), delivered a posthumous anti-Empire speech that literally started a riot.
My favourite? Forest Whitaker's paranoid militant Saw Gerrera huffing starship fuel and exhorting a young Rebel to embrace the madness of rebellion: 'You're right here, and you're ready to fight!'
The pay-offs were sublime
In season one, Cassian's first mission for Luthen is helping steal an imperial payroll. The participants include a young idealist, Karis Nemik (Alex Lawther), who is fighting the Empire by writing a manifesto that articulates its tactics. Like most of the team, Nemik doesn't make it, and his manuscript goes to Cassian. At the show's end, a senior ISB officer, sensing that their control is failing, ruefully listens to a recording that has been illegally circulating through the galaxy. It is Nemik reading his manifesto.
Uncompromising to the end
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The body count was always high in Andor. The odds were so often against the nascent rebels and the show's stormtroopers could actually shoot straight. From early on it was apparent that if a character hadn't featured in Rogue One, the odds were against them surviving the series.
Luthen was clear in his belief that he wouldn't live to see his plans come to fruition, and when the time came the storytelling adhered to that. That Luthen killed his own agent inside the ISB, to preserve the top-secret material he'd just handed over, and then attempted to take his own life when Dedra came calling, was grim and fitting.
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